For teachers of English or other languages, and for students of English or other languages

Thursday, March 15, 2012

810. Communication as indispensable for everyday relationships

One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “Like you know, communication among people is the goal of the school subject of English.

You teacher, in class, I’d advise you, try to speak in English all time.

Now I wanted to tell you some activities to foster, boost and make communication easier in English. If one student says something in his native language, have him say the same in English, as much as he or she can, with his/her own words, with a few words at least, so as to give you some information which you can ‘understand’ him/her with - you all are not English native speakers. You’ll find positive surprises from the students.

Let that student over there go on talking in the target language – don’t interrupt her; even you can ‘tease’ her so that she would go on explaining further about the thing she was talking about. If one student, on the contrary, doesn’t understand you much, have another student say what you said.

Don’t shift into L1: explain the same thing with more simple terms and examples, with the aid of gestures, objects, mimicring, eye-contact, drawings on the board, clues by the students... One more activity: have someone summarize the story you all have worked on lately. It’s sound if you, often, make the summary yourself: it’s indispensable they hear you speaking in English massively.” / Photo from: oregonlive com. chef de cuisine Ian Ragsdale on the left. – German English translator: hope to answer you a.s.a.p. (This person sent me a comment)